doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com London or Birmingham Proofs??

1875-1887 for ''Not for Ball.''

In the 19th century British system, low patent numbers have no relationship to year of filing. They started each year with patent #1 and worked up from there. So #10,000-1870 is older than #399-1890. You need to know the year as well as the number to make sense of those marks.

I can not find either of these patent numbers. I searched all 7 volumes of "Patents for Inventions of Small Arms" and all 3 volumes of Nigel Brown. Hopefully some one else can find them.

Pete

Those numbers associated with the patent figures are probably use numbers?

That is what I thought also, not the actual patent number.

BTW - This shotgun is a Charles Boswell 12ga hammergun

Note that the "Not for Ball" was only applied if the barrels had some degree of choking.

Ah.....that makes sense. The Mortimer is essentially cylinder and tighter cylinder. Is the Boswell cylinder/cylinder?

I have no idea. I am just helping out a guy who likes black rifles but inherited this one and knows nothing about it. I have passed on what the kind folks here have told me.

PS In a completely different story, I stumbled on a gentleman today with another Boswell. This one is a Try Gun!

He also has a Boss Try Gun, but that is another story.